Understanding and Assessing Nonverbal Expressiveness…€¦ · Understanding and Assessing...

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1980, Vol. 39, No. 2, 333-351

Understanding and Assessing Nonverbal Expressiveness:The Affective Communication Test

Howard S. Friedman, Louise M. Prince, Ronald E. Riggio,and M. Robin DiMatteo

University of California, Riverside

The concept of nonverbal emotional expressiveness was explored through thedevelopment of a 13-item self-report Affective Communication Test (ACT).Studies reported here show the ACT to be a reliable and valid measure of indi-vidual differences in expressiveness or what is sometimes called "charisma." Inthe course of the validation, expressiveness was shown to be a likely element ofsocial influence in face-to-face interaction, a logical extension of past approachesto a basic element of personality (exhibition), and a valuable construct in ap-proaching current problems in nonverbal communication research. The measure(and the concept it represents) suggests a new approach for personality researchon emotional expression, studies of individual differences in nonverbal commu-nication, and research on the process of face-to-face interaction.

From common observation of slick and dullsalespersons, charismatic and monotone poli-ticians, impassioned and muttering clergy,and eloquent and wearisome professors, it isclear that there are marked individual differ-ences in expressiveness. Although some ofthese differences are in verbal fluency, theessence of eloquent, passionate, spirited com-munication seems to involve the use of facialexpressions, voice, gestures, and body move-ments to transmit emotions. Nonverbal com-munication modifies and extends verbal mes-sages by allowing the quick, powerful, andyet subtle transmission of the affective ele-ments so important to interpersonal relations(Argyle, 1975; LaFrance & Mayo, 1978).Expressive persons seem somehow to use non-

This research was supported by National Instituteof Mental Health Grant R03MH314S3 to the firstauthor, by a University of California, Riverside,Chancellor's Fellowship to the second author, andindirectly by the Biomedical Research Support Pro-gram of the National Institutes of Health(RR077010-11).

We would like to thank Dan Casella, Pat Devlin,Jay Gallant, Ron Hays, and Dan Segall for theirassistance.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Howard S.Friedman, Department of Psychology, University ofCalifornia, Riverside, California 92521.

verbal cues to move, lead, inspire, or captivateothers.

In psychology, the study of nonverbal ex-pression of emotion has a long history, datingback to Darwin (1872/1965), who wrote that"the force of language is much aided by theexpressive movements of the face and body(p. 354)." Almost all of this research focuseson issues of recognition, such as judgmentsof emotion from facial expression (Ekman,Friesen, & Ellsworth, 1972). Although indi-vidual differences in expressiveness could haveimportant implications for recognition studies(if, e.g., an unexpressive person were chosenas the stimulus person to be judged), thisfactor has rarely been taken into account(cf. Buck, 1975, 1977). In recent years,methodological refinements have producedmeasures of an individual's ability to under-stand nonverbal communication (e.g., Rosen-thai, Hall, DiMatteo, Rogers, & Archer,1979) that have led to important approachesto the emotional subtleties of social inter-action. However, there has been surprisinglylittle study and no standard measurement ofthe process complementary to nonverbalsensitivity, namely, nonverbal expressiveness.

Expressive people are easy to recognize butdifficult to describe. Cult leaders may be said

Copyright 1980 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/80/3902-0333$00.75

333

334 FRIEDMAN, PRINCE, RIGGIO, AND DIMATTEO

to succeed because of "charisma," and actorsmay be hailed as "spirited," but explanationsusually go no deeper. Expressive people cantransmit emotion and thrill or excite others,but the components and correlates of thisability are not known. This article addressesa number of basic questions concerning affec-tive communication.

Part of the difficulty in understanding ex-pressiveness arises from the conflicting frame-works of different researchers. In an attemptto approach the various aspects of expressive-ness from one clearly denned perspective, wedeveloped a self-report scale called the Affec-tive Communication Test (ACT). Using thisscale, the concept of expressiveness was ex-plored through a series of validation studies,which constitute the main body of this article.As will be seen, expressiveness is strongly re-lated to dramatic flair and has important im-plications for various aspects of personalityand social psychology.

Research was undertaken in four mainareas. First, pilot testing and reliabilitystudies were conducted to determine whethera short and simple self-report scale was apractical approach to this topic. These effortswere encouraging, and so a full range ofvalidity studies was conducted. Second, therelationships between nonverbal expressive-ness and aspects of interpersonal relationswere investigated. It was anticipated thatexpressiveness would be characteristic of peo-ple in certain occupations that involve socialinteraction and social influence such as sales,teaching, acting, and politics. Sex differenceswere also examined. Third, the links betweenexpressiveness and traditional approaches topersonality were explored. Following in theresearch traditions concerning personal ex-pressive style and notions of needs or tenden-cies to excite or thrill others, we searched forpersonality trait counterparts to emotionalexpression. Fourth and finally, the ties be-tween nonverbal expressiveness and nonverbalcommunication skills were studied. That is,videotape studies examined the link betweenexpressiveness and acting (posed emotionalsending).

In summary, this article reports the de-velopment of a brief paper-and-pencil measureof individual differences in nonverbal expres-

siveness. In the course of the validation, anumber of important questions concerning theconcept of expressiveness and its psychologicalimplications were addressed. • These includethe social characteristics of expressive people,the personality of expressive people, and therelationship between expressiveness and lab-oratory research on individual differences innonverbal communication skills.

Measuring Expressiveness

Although the idea of nonverbal expressive-ness is an old one, the topic is not well re-searched. In part, it seems that the conceptcould not be scientifically studied until basicprogress in understanding nonverbal com-munication occurred. Only in the past decadehas systematic attention to facial expressions,gestures, and related cues created the con-ceptual climate prerequisite for a refinedanalysis of expressiveness. However, duringthe past decade, two additional factors havelimited the study of expressiveness. The firstfactor is a certain degree of conceptual am-biguity. Expressiveness has been used to meandifferent things including acting ability, natu-ral sending ability, communication ability,emotionality, femininity, extraversion, respon-sivity, and empathy. The second factor is theabsence of standard, convenient measuringinstruments. Either ad hoc measures arecreated and definitions change accordingly, orthe concept is ignored entirely. These twoproblems can be addressed through the devel-opment of a new measure of expressiveness.

On those occasions when nonverbal ex-pressiveness has been studied, it has beengenerally necessary to employ a group of ob-servers to function as judges or receivers. Ifthe judges could recognize the emotion, thesubject was said to be a good sender '(e.g.,Zuckerman, Lipets, Koivumaki, & Rosenthal,1975). The use of judges is costly and un-wieldy. Furthermore, judgments obviouslyvary as a function of the judges. The presentresearch therefore attempted to develop apaper-and-pencil measure that is easily ad-ministered. Such a measure, if validated,could be usefully employed in a number ofstudies involving nonverbal communication,

NONVERBAL EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIVENESS 335

especially when the use of judges is notfeasible.

Since it is generally believed that nonverbalcues function mostly outside awareness, itseems possible that people may not knowtheir own expressiveness. That is, if we aregenerally not continuously aware of such mat-ters as whether our eyebrows are flashing, wemay have little conscious knowledge ofwhether we are communicating emotion. How-ever, most people receive feedback in socialinteraction and probably can report whetherthey can make a friend feel comfortable orentertained, whether they draw a lot of atten-tion to themselves at parties, and so on. Thus,some self-report scales in this area such asSnyder's (1974) self-monitoring scale withitems like "I have never been good at gameslike charades" (true-false) can reasonably beexpected to show some validity. In fact, suchself-report measures will likely prove useful inthe short run as we attempt to gain a greaterconceptual understanding of individual dif-ferences in nonverbal communication. It doesmake sense on a priori grounds to assumesome self-awareness of expressiveness.

Pilot Testing

Our conception of expressiveness was firstrefined through pilot or preliminary testing.A number of psychologists and psychologystudents generated behavior-related self-reportitems that they thought would measure ex-pressiveness. Items were administered to smallgroups of students, and those that were am-biguous or showed little variance were elimi-nated. Remaining items were administered to32 students, and item intercorrelations werecomputed. A sample item was "The tempo ofmy voice remains the same, even when I amexcited."

As a preliminary validity check, a shortscale was constructed of items that led to highinternal consistency and test-retest reliability,and the scores were compared to ratings ofthe subjects' expressiveness given by theirteaching assistants; the correlations were en-couraging. As desired, scores were also foundto be related to the Exhibition scale of Jack-son's (1974) Personality Research Form(PRF) (described later). Encouraged that

Table 1The Affective Communication Test"Self-Description Questionnaire

1. When I hear good dance music, I can hardlykeep still.

2. My laugh is soft and subdued.3. I can easily express emotion over the telephone.4. I often touch friends during conversations.5. I dislike being watched by a large group of

people.6. I usually have a neutral facial expression.7. People tell me that I would make a good actor

or actress.8. I like to remain unnoticed in a crowd.9. I am shy among strangers.

10. I am able to give a seductive glance if I want to.11. I am terrible at pantomime as in games like

charades.12. At small parties I am the center of attention.13. I show that I like someone by hugging or

touching that person.

• Directions may be obtained from the authors.

such a self-report scale could be reliable andvalid, we proceeded to use the items on thepreliminary scale as the basis for generationof a new pool of potential items.

Test Construction

Forty-six items were selected, and a self-report questionnaire was constructed. Severalversions were made so that the order in whichthe items were presented was counterbalanced.Also, about half of the items were worded inthe reverse direction so that a negative re-sponse indicated expressiveness.

College students were recruited to fill outthe questionnaire, which consisted of 9-pointresponse scales. Ambiguous items were theneliminated, and markedly skewed or low vari-ance items (M < 3 or > 7, SD < 2.1) weredeleted from the scale. Interitem and item-total correlations were computed on the re-maining items and a short, reliable scale wasconstructed. Items deleted at this final stageincluded: "I like to go to sad movies andcry," "I am photogenic (attractive in pic-tures)," and "I like to make speeches."

The ACT. The Affective CommunicationTest (ACT)1 is a paper-and-pencil, self-report

1 The ACT may be reproduced for research pur-poses without permission.


Table 2Descriptive Statistics for the AffectiveCommunication Test

Statistic Sample 1" Sample 2b

MMdnModeMinimumMaximumSDSkewness

71.271.169.028.0

114.016.4-.1

71.371.368.025.0

116.015.2

.1

Note. Possible minimum = 13; possible maximum= 117.« « = 289. > ' » = 311.

measure of individual differences. It consistsof 13 items. For each item the subject indi-cates on a 9-point scale from —4 to +4 theextent to which the statement is true or falseas it applies to him or her. For example, thefirst item (which is answered on a scale of"not at all true of me" to "very true of me")is "When I hear good dance music, I canhardly keep still." (See Table 1.)

The ACT is scored by adding the scores onthe individual items after first adding 5 pointsto each item (to eliminate negative numbers)and reversing the scores for the six itemsworded in the opposite direction. (Items 2, 5,6, 8, 9, and 11 are reversed.)

The norms for the ACT from two largesamples (of students) are presented in Table2. Subjects in the first sample ranged in agefrom 16 to S3, with a mean age of 22.3 and22% age 24 or older. The distribution ofscores is symmetrical and of useful range.

The ACT was developed on and was ex-pected to be used with college students pri-marily. However, for a short scale, the ACTturned out to be a better scale than expected.Given no evidence that the ACT is not validwith other populations, researchers shouldnot refrain from the cautious use of the ACTwith other groups of people.

Reliability

Internal consistency. Coefficient alpha forthe 13-item ACT for a sample of 289 under-graduates was equal to .77. (This coefficientcompares favorably with the Kuder-Richard-

son (K-R) 20 coefficient of .70 found for the25-item self-monitoring scale; Snyder, 1974.)

Test-retest reliability. A sample of 44students was administered the ACT on twooccasions, 2 months apart. The test-retestcorrelation was .90 (p < .001). A second sam-ple of 38 was given the ACT with a separa-tion of one week between testings. The corre-lation was .91 (p < .001).

The reliability of the ACT is excellent,especially for a research tool (as opposed toa standardized, applied test) and one of suchshort length (cf. Nunnally, 1978, chap. 7).

Ratings by Friends: A First Validity Stitdy

A primary means of validation for the ACTinvolved judgments by friends. It was antici-pated that a person's friends would be knowl-edgeable about his or her expressiveness, evenafter allowing for the likelihood of differingdefinitions of the term expressiveness. Espe-cially important is the fact that friends' rat-ings are relatively free of biases introducedby subject self-report measures.

Each of 68 undergraduates who had com-pleted the ACT was given three rating formswith stamped envelopes and was instructed todistribute the forms to three friends. Theinstructions on the rating form directed thefriend to complete the ratings in private andmail the form back directly to the experi-menter. Complete confidentiality was assured;under no circumstances would the ratings berevealed.

The rating forms contained 9-point bipolarscales on which the friends rated the subjecton the degree to which he or she is "expres-sive with face," "expressive with body," "ex-pressive with voice," and would "make a goodactor." These four questions were positivelyintercorrelated (r ranged from .48 to .69) andso were summed to provide a more reliableindex.

At least one rating form was returned for61 of the 68 subjects (90%); 56 subjects(82%) had two or three forms returned. Thefriends' ratings were averaged for eachsubject.

As desired, there was a significant and non-trivial relationship between the ACT scoresand the ratings of expressiveness by subjects'


friends, r ( 5 9 ) - .39, p < .01. This correla-tion is especially impressive given the varioussources of error introduced by such unavoid-able factors as the imperfect knowledge of thefriends, the fact that subjects selected theirown raters (according to their own criteria),the probability that the friends may havetried to make the subject look good, and thesmall number of raters. The relationship heldtrue for both males, r ( 2 2 ) = .43, and fe-males, r ( 3 5 ) = .30. Thus, at the very least,the ACT captures some of what friendsunderstand to be a person's degree of non-verbal expressiveness.

Although a short, self-report measure, theACT seems valid in the sense that it reflectsthe perceptions of others concerning one'sexpressiveness. This is fortunate, since ex-pressiveness is partly communication to others.Important, related validity questions thusconcern whether the ACT is related to aspectsof interpersonal relations. This matter is thetopic of the next section of this article.

Expressiveness and Interpersonal Relations

It was hypothesized that expressiveness isthe essential characteristic of those people ableto move, inspire, or captivate others. Thus,the expressiveness measure (the ACT) shouldbe able to predict such behaviors. In particu-lar, we expected that expressiveness would berelated to lecturing, political skills, theatricalexperiences, influence and social interaction invarious occupations, and certain other aspectsof interpersonal relations. Nine questions ona questionnaire addressed these issues.

Lecturing. In a clever demonstration ofthe possible dominance of style over sub-stance, Naftulin, Ware, and Donnelly (1973)seduced experienced educators into believingthat they had learned worthwhile materialfrom a lecture by "Dr. Fox" despite the factthat the lecturer had conveyed irrelevant,meaningless, and conflicting content, thoughin an engaging professional style. Since thewords made little sense, it presumably wassomething about the nonverbal expressions ofthe lecturer that made an impression. Sinceexpressive people probably tend to gravitatetoward or to be selected for lecturing, weexpected that the ACT would be related to

whether someone had ever lectured. Hence,students were asked if they had ever lecturedto a group of people (Question 1).

Political charisma. That certain leadersexert influence through charisma or their giftto inspire others is an old and fundamentalnotion in sociology (e.g., Weber, 1968), butthe psychological characteristics of charis-matic leaders are little studied. Nonverbalexpressiveness was hypothesized to be a com-ponent of the social skill called politicalcharisma. Hence, subjects were asked directlywhether they were or had ever been anelected official of any organization (Question2).

Theatrical experience. It was expected thatpeople who are nonverbally expressive wouldbe more likely to have an interest in profes-sional acting. Furthermore, it seemed proba-ble that people with training and experiencein stage acting would be more expressive.Thus, a key validity question involved actingtraining and experience. Subjects were askedwhether they had ever had a major part in astage play or show (Question 3) and whetherthey had ever taken an acting class (Ques-tion 4).

A different sample was asked about theextent to which they have been involved inacting or drama (on a 9-point scale fromnever to constantly involved; Question S). (Avalidation study directly relating acting andthe ACT using videotape is described later inthis article.)

Social interaction in occupation. Althoughthe people we studied were at least part-timestudents, about half held part-time jobs. Itwas thought that expressive people mightselect and be selected for employment thatinvolved working with and influencing people.Subjects were asked what type of work theydid presently (Question 6) and what theyplanned to do after college (Question 7).

Occupations were rated by four indepen-dent judges on a S-point scale assessing thedegree to which a given occupation requiredsocial skills. For example, counselors, mini-sters, diplomats, and insurance salesmen re-ceived a high rating, whereas cooks, geolo-gists, forklift operators, and electronicsassemblers received a low rating. The inter-judge reliability, coefficient alpha (with judgesas "items"), was .91.


Table 3Expressiveness and Interpersonal Relations

Question

1 (lecturing)2 (political charisma)3 (stage show)4 (acting class)5 (acting experience)6 (occupation)7 (future occupation)8 (sales)9 (lab workers)

r

.19

.20

.23

.33

.27

.27

.22

.14

.04

Overall

df

278286277286

64162229282280

P

.001

.001

.001

.001

.03

.001

.001

.02ns

r

.19

.25

.26

.32

.39

.13

.25-.05

Males

df

124130125129

71100125126

Females

P

.05

.01

.01

.001small.001.19.01ns

r

.22

.12

.21

.33sample

.16

.29

.06

.11

df

150151147152

86124152149

P

.01

.14

.01

.001

.14

.001nsns

Note. For consistency, all effects are reported as r rather than some as /.

Salespersons. It was anticipated that ef-fective salespersons would tend to be non-verbally expressive, especially those salesper-sons involved in face-to-face persuasion.Although none of the ACT items is directlyrelated to persuasion, it seemed likely thatemotional communication is an importantelement of many persuasive or captivatingappeals. This line of thought was encouragedby a case study in which we sent an ACT tothe number one Toyota salesman in theUnited States (an ad claimed), a man whohad sold over 1,300 cars in 1 year. This topsalesman scored 99, a very high score, sug-gesting that expressiveness is indeed character-istic of top salesmen.

In an attempt to examine persuasivenesssystematically, subjects were asked whetherthey had ever worked as a salesperson whosejob it was to convince people to buy some-thing (e.g., used car or encyclopedia sales-person) (Question 8).

Labworkers. Finally, it was also expectedthat the opposite might be true of laboratorywork. That is, it was predicted that studentswho spend a lot of time in scientific labora-tories or interacting with a computer (asreported on a 9-point scale) would tend to berelatively low in expressiveness (Question 9).

Method

A questionnaire containing eight of the abovenine questions was administered to 300 undergradu-ates, 54% of whom were females. A different sampleof 68 students responded to Question 5. All studentsalso completed the ACT.

Results

The results for the questionnaire studies ofinterpersonal relations are presented in Table3. As predicted, expressiveness as measuredby the ACT was significantly related to lec-turing (expressiveness means of 74.8 vs. 68.6),political charisma (means of 74.2 vs. 67.8),stage acting, acting class, acting experience,occupation, future occupation, and sales inthe expected manner. However, no associationwas found with time spent working in scien-tific laboratories.

Degree of Social Interaction:Physicians and Patients

It was expected that expressive peoplewould tend to interact with lots of people orhave many followers. One setting in which wecould test this prediction with archival data(other than self-report data) involved physi-cians and their patients. In a family-practiceclinic setting where each resident (physician)is responsible for certain families, the numberof patients seen by a physician is considereda measure of the physician's popularity. Ofcourse, patient load may be merely a measureof efficiency, but in many medical settings,there is consensus that certain physicians arealways in demand.

Twenty-five family-practice residents (phy-sicians) were administered the ACT. Eachphysician's patient load was measured as thesum over 6 months of the number of patientvisits per month, corrected by the number of


days assigned to clinic work. Physicians inthis setting were not required to see a pre-assigned number of patients.

The correlation between the ACT and popu-larity (patient visits) was .52 (« = 25, p <.01). Thus, expressive physicians were morelikely to have a greater number of patients.

Sex Differences

Although the evidence is not overwhelming,past research has tended to find that adultfemales are slightly more expressive (in thesense of better communicators of emotion)than adult males (Buck, Miller, & Caul, 1974;Hall, 1979; see also Hoffman, 1977, regard-ing empathy; Hall, Note 1).

In the construction of the ACT, individualitems were not examined for the existence ofsex differences. However, sex differences onthe ACT emerged. In one sample of 132males and 155 females, the mean scores were69.1 and 72.8, respectively, t(2&5) = 1.9, p< .07; r = .11.- In a second sample of 137males and 174 females, almost identical meanswere found, 69.8 for males, 72.6 for females,<(309) = 1.7, p < .11; r = .09. (All p val-ues are for two-tailed tests.) Thus, the ACTis consistent with research showing slightlymore expressiveness for females and providessome further evidence for this phenomenon. Itshould be noted that this finding is in contrastto the observation that women tend to scorelower than men on extraversion (Eysenck &Eysenck, 1968a, 1968b).

Evidence of sex differences in nonverbalcommunication raises a number of challeng-ing questions concerning socialization and thenature of masculinity-femininity (e.g., Buck,1977; Hall, 1979). For example, it may bethe case that boys learn to mask their emo-tional expressions. The findings of the presentresearch program encourage further efforts inthese directions. In the present article, resultsare reported separately for males and femaleswhen sex differences appear of possible im-portance.

Discussion

The ability to inspire or captivate others isimportant to various occupations. For exam-

ple, such skills seem important for effectiveleadership and teaching. On the other hand,such qualities seem to characterize effectivequacks and charlatans of all kinds. A betterunderstanding of emotional communication isnecessary for addressing both sides of the coin.

The ACT examines such notions as "slick-ness" and "charisma" in terms of individualdifferences in nonverbal emotional expressive-ness. The results thus far are encouraging.The ACT could reliably distinguish people ona number of dimensions of social interaction.By reducing vague notions like slickness tomeasurable differences in communication,constructs such as expressiveness can providethe basis for systematic research into impor-tant questions concerning the role of emotionin interpersonal relations.

Although expressiveness definitely seemsrelated to social interaction and influence, itmay be that another dimension such asMachiavellianism is actually accounting forthe observed relationships. Therefore, we nextundertook the study of the correlation be-tween the ACT and other more traditionalpersonality measures.

Expressiveness and Personality

Nonverbal expression has long been linkedto personality through the notion of personalexpressive style. In fact, many of the ACTitems have been suggested by one or morewriters over the years as an important ele-ment of personal style. For example, the itemconcerning laughter ("My laugh is soft andsubdued") was singled out by Murphy (1947)who referred to "the rippling or stifled qualityof the laughter" (p. 633) as an element ofpersonality.

Since Allport and Vernon (1933) identifieda general factor of expressive movementcalled emphasis (voice intensity, movementduring speech, writing pressure), there havebeen scattered studies encouraging pursuit ofthe present line of research. Allport (1961)

2 Correlation coefficients (r) with categorical vari-ables (dummy coded) are reported to provide ameasure of strength of association that can bereadily compared to the many other correlationsreported in this article.


repeatedly stressed the importance of payingsufficient attention to the expressive aspect ofbehavior (how we are doing something), in-stead of only studying the coping aspect ofbehavior (what we are doing). However,Allport was interested in all aspects of ex-pressive style, from dancing to handwriting,rather than in emotional communication.

Like many of his contemporaries, Murray(1938) analyzed psychological behavior interms of drives or needs—desires for mentalor emotional satisfaction. One of the basicneeds was called exhibition. This need wasseen as related to ambition and accomplish-ment but in the sense of emotional communi-cation—a need to excite, amuse, stir, shock,or thrill others. Jackson's (1974) PersonalityResearch Form, developed from Murray'ssystem of needs, also included exhibition as abasic element of personality, but it was seenas a trait. People high on exhibition are color-ful, spellbinding, noticeable, expressive, dra-matic, and showy. Thus, exhibition was ex-pected to be highly related to the ACT. It isimportant to note that the present researchattempts to continue study of this basic aspectof personality by viewing exhibition not as aneed or a trait but as a communication—specifically the nonverbal communication ofemotion. Thus, attention is shifted to inter-personal interaction, that is, how one personmay stir or excite others.

Related research concerning expressive-ness and personality has been conducted in thecontext of the internalizer-externalizer dimen-sion (Buck, 1975, 1977; Buck et al., 1974).(For an integrative review of this personalityresearch, see Buck, 1979.) In this paradigm,a sender is shown arousing stimuli, and ex-pressiveness is defined in terms of the ac-curacy of a hidden observer in judging thespontaneous nonverbal expressions of emotion.Expressiveness so defined has been found tobe correlated with being rated as sociable,talkative, and emotionally open but also withbeing impulsive and dominating. A similarpattern of correlations was found in a researchprogram that defined expressiveness in termsof posed or acted emotional communication(Friedman, DiMatteo, & Taranta, in press).Good "actors" were also dramatic, adven-turous, dominant, impulsive, and playful (as

measured by the PRF). Such robust findingsindicate that emotional responding may be akey element of personality. Thus, it was ex-pected that the ACT might show a similarpattern of relationships to other personalitytraits, specifically to the relevant traits of thePersonality Research Form.

Two other broad, pervasive dimensions ofpersonality of probable relevance to expres-siveness are extraversion-introversion andneuroticism-stability (Eysenck & Eysenck,1968a, 1968b). Extraverted people (outgoing,impulsive, and uninhibited) do not tend tokeep their feelings under tight control. Ex-pressiveness is certainly not identical to extra-version, but they may be related in that peoplewho communicate emotions well to others seemto be more likely to be sociable and expressfeelings. People high on (Eysenck & Ey-senck's, 1968a) neuroticism are emotionallylabile and overresponsive. Such neurotic peo-ple might also be expressive if it is high emo-tional responsivity that underlies expressive-ness. However, emotionally responsive andunstable people are not necessarily good atcommunicating emotion to others.

Based on the Murray (1938) and Jackson(1974) formulations, expressive people (highon ACT) were expected to be colorful anddramatic but not emotional, touchy, ormoody. Expressive people are conceived of asbeing outgoing and sociable rather thanthoughtful and controlled and as active andimpulsive rather than anxious and sober.Thus, ACT was expected to be positively cor-related with extraversion and uncorrelated ornegatively correlated with neuroticism.

Other Measures of Convergent andDiscriminant Validity

It is important to ascertain the relationshipbetween the ACT and other common, reliablepersonality tests both to establish the dis-criminant validity of the scale and to gain aclearer understanding of the concept. Theseother scales of interest were the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, the Machi-avellian Scale, the Taylor Manifest AnxietyScale (TMAS), the Rotter Internal-External(I-E) Locus of Control Scale, the Cooper-smith Self-Esteem Inventory, and the Snyder


Self-Monitoring Scale. Predictions, if any,concerning correlations between these scalesand the ACT are mentioned as the results arepresented.

Method

Two groups of subjects, all college students, wereused to study the relationship between the ACT andpersonality. The first sample consisted of 76 studentswho volunteered as a means of satisfying a courserequirement. They participated in small groups andwere administered the following measures: the Ex-hibition and Affiliation scales of the PRF, the Mar-lowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, the TMAS,the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, the Machi-avellianism scale, the Rotter I-E scale, the Self-Monitoring Scale, and the ACT.

The second sample, 31 males and 37 females, waspart of a study involving videotaping (see later).In the first of two sessions, they were administeredthe full Personality Research Form, the EysenckPersonality Inventory, the Self-Monitoring Scale,and the ACT.

Results

ACT and the Personality Research Form

The ACT was expected to be highly thoughnot perfectly correlated with the personalitytrait exhibition and to show a predicted pat-tern of relationships with other PRF traits.The correlations between the ACT and thePRF are shown in Table 4. Individuals scor-ing highly on the ACT also were high onexhibition and tended to be affiliative, domi-nant, and somewhat achieving, playful, andnot socially proper. ACT scores were not re-lated to impulsivity.

To a striking degree, the pattern of correla-tions that emerged parallels the findings ofprevious research that used actual observa-tions of expressiveness. The observed patternthus further validates the ACT and increasesour confidence that expressiveness can beviewed as related to certain basic elements ofpersonality.

ACT, Extra-version, and Neuroticism

The correlations between the ACT and theEysenck Personality Inventory are also pre-sented in Table 4 (bottom). As expected, theACT and extraversion were correlated. The

ACT and neuroticism were slightly negativelycorrelated, suggesting that expressiveness isnot due to emotional responsivity. These find-ings are consistent with those of Cunningham(1977).

Other Measures

Social desirability. As a measure of ex-pressiveness, the ACT should not be highlyrelated to social desirability, a tendency todescribe oneself in favorable ways (Crowne &Marlowe, 1964). However, the ACT is also aself-report scale with some items that seemto reflect popularity, a socially desirable at-tribute. The correlation between ACT andsocial desirability was .22 (N =16,p< .06).Thus, ACT does contain a small element ofsocial desirability.

Machiavellianism. Machiavellianism, orthe tendency to manipulate others for selfishreasons, might be thought to be related to ex-pressiveness, since the nuances of face-to-facecommunication are central to both conceptsand both involve an element of ambition (cf.Christie & Geis, 1970). On the other hand,communication does not necessarily seem tobe related to desire to manipulate; for exam-ple, salesmen and politicians may be manipu-lative without being charismatic or charis-matic without being manipulative. The corre-lation between the ACT and Machiavellianismwas .08 (N = 71, ns). The ACT does notseem to encompass any element of manipula-tive intent.

Manifest anxiety. Trait anxiety (Taylor,19S3) was not expected to be related to ACT,although it might be suggested that veryanxious people are emotionally expressive.The ACT was found not to be related to theTMAS (r = -.17, N = 76, ns).

Internal-external locus of control. An in-dividual's belief that he or she is or is not themaster of his or her own fate (internal vs. ex-ternal control; Rotter, 1966) was not ex-pected to be strongly related to expressiveness.The correlation with ACT was -.28 (N =76, />< .OS) . individuals with an internallocus of control tended to be more expressive.This correlation was not predicted but maybe related to social influence; some people


Table 4Personality and the Affective Communication Test (Correlations)

Sample

Scale

Jackson PRFAchievementAffiliationAggressionAutonomyDominanceEnduranceExhibitionHarm avoidanceImpulsivityNurturanceOrderPlaySocial recognitionUnderstanding

EPIExtraversionNeuroticismLie

1(n = 68)

.28*

.42***

.10-.03

.45***

.15

.60***-.11

.13

.21

.05

.24*-.27*

.07

.52***-.26*

.03

1 (males)(« = 31)

.30

.44*

.18-.13

.48**

.0549**

-.03.02.37*.17.27

-.26.22

.55***-.45*

.04

1 (females)(n = 37)

.28

.34*

.09

.19

.45**

.24

.76***-.29

.23-.04-.16

.24-.32-.03

.46**-.11

.00

2(n = 76)

.40***

.62***

Note. PRF means Personality Research Form; EPI means Eysenck Personality Inventory.*p<.05. **p<. 01. *** p < . 001.

may feel both that they want to and can cap-tivate those around them.

Self-esteem. Self-esteem, an individual'sjudgment of his or her worth (Coopersmith,1967), was not expected to be strongly relatedto expressiveness. The correlation between theACT and the Coopersmith Self-esteem Scalewas .27 (N = 75, p < .05). Individuals witha high self-esteem tended to be more ex-pressive.

Although the correlations between the ACTand manifest anxiety, locus of control, andself-esteem were all small, together they sug-gest that expressive people may tend to bebetter adjusted interpersonally, a finding notinconsistent with the results reported earlierconcerning interpersonal skills.

Expressiveness and Self-Monitoring

One of the few sound attempts to measurethe performance aspect of expressiveness is theresearch on self-monitoring undertaken bySnyder (1974, 1979). The paper-and-pencilSelf-Monitoring Scale (SMS) attempts to dis-

tinguish people on the basis of whether theyare concerned with the social appropriatenessof their affective behaviors, whether they cantell what behaviors are appropriate in a socialsituation, and whether they can and do ex-press appropriate affects and conceal inappro-priate feelings. Although research has shownthe SMS to be of value when issues of self-presentation are involved (Snyder, 1979),several studies have shown little relationshipbetween sending ability and the SMS (Cun-ningham, 1977; Zuckerman, Hall, DeFrank,& Rosenthal, 1976).

It is important to distinguish self-monitor-ing from the concept of nonverbal expressive-ness. Self-monitoring is a multifaceted hypo-thetical construct whose central componentsinvolve issues of intent, perceptiveness, decep-tion, and appropriateness. Thus, the scaleincludes items such as "I would not changemy opinion (or the way I do things) in orderto please someone else or win their favor"(true or false), and "I may deceive people bybeing friendly when I really dislike them."However, expressiveness as defined in the pres-


ent context refers more basically to communi-cation than monitoring. A loud-mouthed boormight be low in self-monitoring but high inexpressiveness. A shy adolescent might besensitive to what he or she does and whatothers think but unable to communicate ef-fectively. Nevertheless, to some extent theconcepts of self-monitoring and expressivenessoverlap. A stage actor might be high and aschizophrenic low on both.

The correlation between the two paper-and-pencil scales, the ACT and the SMS, was in-vestigated in two samples by giving studentsboth scales during the same testing session.

Expressiveness (ACT) seems only slightlyrelated to self-monitoring. In one sample of68 subjects, the correlation was .21 (ns),small but positive. A second sample showedsimilar results (r — .14, N = 76, ns; males,r — ,09; females, r= .19 ) . Expressivenessseems to have little to do with the desire andability to control one's communications sothat they are appropriate. This finding maybe seen as consistent with those reportedearlier showing expressiveness to be related toexhibition, dominance, and extraversion.

Discussion

As a psychometric instrument (a personal-ity test) the ACT does well, particularlygiven the limitations of an economcial self-report measure. It seems that expressivepeople may in general be enthusiastic but un-controlled. That is, they may tend to expresstheir feelings comfortably, effectively, andwith disregard for social conventions.

On a priori grounds, it seemed likely thatsome high correlations would be found be-tween expressiveness and certain personalitytraits. For example, there is increasing evi-dence that extraversion is related to a numberof nonverbal behaviors. One might be temptedto conclude that we are "only" measuring ex-traversion or exhibition. But for a number ofreasons, such correlations are encouragingrather than troubling. In the first place, suchcorrelations were not and will not be perfect;it is assumed that expressiveness will ulti-mately prove a more reliable and valid con-struct for many purposes. But that is an em-pirical question. More important is the idea

that expressiveness is a social interactionalcounterpart of certain traits. It is not neces-sary to think about cause and effect until afiner understanding is achieved. Does an ex-travert become expressive, does an expressivepsrson become an extravert, or do the twoconcepts develop from the same underlyingforces? The possibility of such questions re-freshes our traditional concept of traits.

Expressiveness and NonverbalCommunication Skills

Recent years have seen increased attentionto individual differences in nonverbal com-munication skills (e.g., Rosenthal, Note 2).As mentioned earlier, this work has often be-gun with traditional personality variables, butit has been extended to the areas of emotionalcontrol and social perception. A major goal ofsuch research is an understanding of the struc-ture of nonverbal communication abilities,paralleling the search for a structure under-lying personality traits (e.g., Cunningham,1977).

Although the ACT was developed to addressbroad issues in the definition and social im-portance of expressiveness, it is also a newmeasure of individual differences in a non-verbal communication ability. Hence, the re-lationship between the ACT and acting abilityor posed emotional sending (as determined bythe accuracy of judges' ratings) is of specialinterest.

Acting

Actors and acting have been of great intel-lectual interest ever since the origins oftheater in ancient Greece over 2,000 yearsago. However, as Miller (1972) points out, itis not the playwright's words but rather theactor's addition of nonverbal cues to the life-less verbal scripts that is the essence oftheater. Part of a stage actor's skill is theability to portray another person. However,different from this aspect of acting and closerto our present concerns is what is often calledinterpretation. This process involves therendering of a part to bring out the meaningin one's own personal way. To some extentall social life may be seen as the playing of


social roles, and the management of one's faceand voice is the key to dramaturgical discip-line (Goffman, 19S9). In many social inter-actions interpersonal success or failure de-pends on one's ability to bring out the fullmeaning of one's thoughts and feelingsthrough appropriate nonverbal expressions.

Is expressiveness related to acting ability?As Izard (1977, p. 82) points out, awarenessof emotional expression is a matter of degree,a continuum from voluntary to involuntary.He notes that persons expressing sympathy orchildren exaggerating distress generally do nothave complete awareness and voluntary facialcontrol. In such cases, it is difficult to dis-tinguish acting from expressiveness. Further-more, since proprioceptive feedback from theface is so closely tied to emotion, feeling mayeasily become relevant to cases of voluntary(posed) expression. This is not to say thatsome people in certain situations cannot "puton a happy face" that has no relationship tothe times they involuntarily express the emo-tion happiness, but only that present evidencesuggests that voluntary and involuntary ex-pressiveness may be substantially related inmany situations. Recent research has foundmoderate to large correlations between posedsending and spontaneous sending (Cunning-ham, 1977; Zuckerman et al., 1976).

The expected relationship between expres-siveness (as measured by the ACT) and act-ing ability (posed emotional sending) is in-fluenced by conflicting factors. On the onehand, professional actors and those who wouldmake good actors do often seem both emo-tionally expressive and able to act or com-municate emotion at will. On the other hand,all expressive people would not make goodactors. For example, an expressive preachersuch as Billy Graham may be able and will-ing to communicate joy when he is joyful butunable to communicate joy when he is angryor depressed. On the contrary, an expressiveperson may be one who tends to communicateaccurately whatever emotion he or she isexperiencing.

There is evidence that females are betterthan males at communication through posedemotional expression (Zuckerman et al.,1975) and that preschool boys learn to inhibittheir natural overt emotional expressions

(Buck, 1977). There are probably substantialsocialization factors affecting expression. Al-though there are obviously individual differ-ences in expressiveness among both males andfemales, different relationships between theACT and posed emotional sending for thesexes might be expected. Therefore, the pres-ent research used both male and female actors(senders) and analyzed the results separatelyfor males and females.

Method

Subjects and Recruitment

The subjects or actors were 37 female and 31male undergraduate students. To insure a wide rangeof ACT scores, we drew from a population that hadbeen pretested on the ACT and recruited studentsfrom each decile of ACT scores. Each subject par-ticipated in two sessions, a personality testing ses-sion (described earlier) and a videotaping session.Subjects gave their informed consent to be video-taped and were paid for their efforts. People withserious speech or physical impairments that mightinfluence aspects of their expressiveness were ex-cluded from study.

Procedure

The subject entered a large, partitioned studiocontaining SONY l-in. videotape recorders and blackand white cameras; video monitors were hiddenfrom view. The subject engaged in a period ofnatural interaction and then certain role-playingexercises in front of the cameras (as part of a dif-ferent study) and so was somewhat accustomed tobeing taped by the time the present study began.One male and one female experimenter conductedeach session.

The subject was seated in a chair about 8 ft.(2.4 m) from the camera, which was focused on hisor her head and shoulders. Sound was recorded bya SONY EMC-16 microphone attached to the subject'scollar. Subjects were told that this research in-volved an investigation of how people express emo-tions even when not necessarily feeling the emotion.Subjects were to imagine that they were communi-cating an emotion to another person and to then tryto express that emotion. Since we were interested innonverbal expression, the verbal content of the com-munication was held constant. This was accomplishedin one of two ways. On some trials, the subjects triedto communicate emotion while saying one of twoverbally neutral sentences. These sentences were "Ihaven't seen you for a while" and "Do you reallywant to do this?" Although such standard contentsentences are relatively natural, it was thought thatthe words might sometimes interfere with certainemotional communications. Hence, on other trials,


the subjects endeavored to express emotion whilesaying part of the alphabet, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G."

Seven categories of emotion were employed (cf.Ekman et al., 1972). These were happiness, sadness,anger, disgust, surprise, fear, and neutral.

Each subject was given a set of 21 cards, whichcontained the combinations of the two sentences andthe alphabet with the seven emotions. The order ofpresentation was counterbalanced across subjects.The subject was instructed to read aloud the emotionprinted at the top of the card, think about theemotion, look into the camera, and say the sentencewhile expressing the emotion. The camera was leftoperating, and the subject proceeded at his or herown pace until all 21 communications had beenexpressed.

Judgments

To determine the actors' (subjects') abilities tocommunicate posed emotion accurately, their at-tempts were shown to naive raters (judges). Theacting was divided into three parts, the first contentstandard sentence, the second content standardsentence, and the alphabet. The acted segments werethen edited onto three separate stimulus videotapes.Each segment was 3 sec long and there were 4.5 secfor judging. Each stimulus tape was about 1 hourlong with the approximately 475 segments (68 actorsX 7 emotions) in random order.

Judges were instructed to decide which emotionthe person on the videotape was expressing in eachsegment. They did so on an answer sheet that listedthe seven possible emotions for each segment. Judgesviewed the tapes in small groups. They were in-structed to judge each segment independently and toavoid showing any reactions of their own. To in-crease motivation, a cash prize was promised for thebest (most accurate) judges.

Reliability of judges' ratings. To insure thatjudges tended to agree with each other and thusform a reliable scale, each judge was assigned a 0or 1 as to whether the emotion was correctly judgedfor each trial, and the reliability statistic K-R 20was computed for the judges involved in rating thesecond sentence (treating judges as items). As de-sired, the judgments were reliable: K-R 20 = .89.(The first and second sentences were judged by 26students each. Seventeen students judged the alpha-bet sending.)

Dependent Measure

As in previous research, the actors' sending abili-ties were defined as the proportion of judges whocorrectly identified the emotion intended. However,a question arose concerning the issue of emotioncategories (cf. Ekman et al., 1972; Friedman, 1979).Untrained judges will often confuse certain similaremotions and emotion labels. For example, disgustmight be seen as anger. Such a judgment is correct inthe sense that the communication is not seen as

being in a very different category of emotion suchas happiness or surprise. We assumed such confusionwas at work in this study, since the overall level ofcommunication accuracy in preliminary analyses wasaround 35% rather than at the 60%-70% level ex-pected on the basis of previous research. A table ofjudges' errors confirmed that certain systematic,common confusions were being made. Thus, wescored a judgment as correct if it was happiness orsurprise when happiness was expressed, surprise orhappiness when surprise was expressed, anger or dis-gust for anger, disgust or anger for disgust, and fearor surprise when fear was expressed. Sad was con-fused with several related emotions, and so only ajudgment of sadness was considered correct.

Results

The correlations between abilities to sendthe various emotions accurately were con-sistently positive but sometimes low. Hence,correlations with the ACT were computedseparately for each emotion as well as usingtotal (sum) sending scores. Multiple regres-sion analysis was also employed but was lim-ited in utility by the relatively low subject-to-variable ratio.

The correlation between posed sendingability on Sentence 1 and on Sentence 2 forthe seven emotions ranged from .36 to .69(Md« = .SS). For total posed sending, thecorrelation between the two sentences was .84.Thus, people who could express emotion whensaying the first sentence also could do sowhen saying the second sentence; therefore,the two scores were averaged to provide amore stable estimate of posed sending ability.Alphabet sending was considered separately.

The means and standard deviations forposed sending accuracy showed that untrainedsubjects had substantial ability to enact orpose emotions to a camera in such a way thatjudges would later be able to identify the cor-rect emotions. It was also apparent that therewas substantial variation in ability.

An interesting place to begin considerationof the substantive findings concerns the com-munication of neutral affect. If the ACT ismeasuring emotional expressiveness ratherthan self-control, a reversal should occur onthe expression of neutral affect with standardcontent sentences. That is, people low on theACT should score high on (do well at) ex-pressing neutral, since they are generally moreneutral. On the other hand, highly expressive


Table SCorrelations Between the Affective Communication Test and Posed Emotional Sending Abilities

Emotion

VariableSur- Dis- Fear-

Happy Angry Sad prised gusted ful Neutral"

Total Totalincluding excluding

neutral neutral

Contentstandardsentences

Total sampleTVMalesnFemalesn

AlphabetTotal sampleNMalesnFemalesn

68—31

37

68

31

37

.12

.13

.35**

.07

02

,03

.1268-.0231

.1537

.1367-.0430

.2437

.1668

.1031

.2337

.0668

.0931

.0637

.1768-.1531

.51***37

.2067

.1030

.27*37

.0866-.1530

.2236

.30**68

.2831

.2337

.1367

.0030

.2437

-.0067

.0630

.0637

.22*66

.1830

.1636

.0267

.1530-.0737

64— .29

35

65

28

37

.22*

.07

.47***

.26**

,08

,26

.1865-.0929

.42***36

.24*65

.1328

.2637

" Neutral is scored in the reverse direction; a high number means subject is poor at sending "neutral"(i.e., is expressive).* p < .10. ** p < .05. *** p < .01.

people will likely express their feelings of themoment even when asked to be neutral. Suchwas the case. There was a negative correla-tion, r(64) = -.22, p < .08, between sub-jects' scores on the ACT and judges' detec-tion of "neutral" being expressed. Expressivepeople had a relatively difficult time appearingneutral. In subsequent analyses the scoring ofneutral was reversed and totals were com-puted with and without neutral.

The correlations between expressiveness (asmeasured by the ACT) and posed emotionalsending are presented in Table 5. Overall, theACT is positively correlated with actingabilities, but the effects are small.

Striking sex differences emerged. For fe-males, a strong relationship, even strongerthan expected, emerged between the ACT andacting ability. But for males the correlationwas zero or was even slightly negative. Malesdid vary in their ACT scores and in theirposed sending ability, but the two were notrelated. It is possible that the males in thisstudy were atypical in their acting ability. Orperhaps males were unwilling to act in thissituation despite apparent cooperation. How-ever, it may be that males who are not gen-

erally expressive have nevertheless acquiredthe skill to pose certain emotions when neces-sary. Or, assuming social norms for males in-hibit the cultivation of expressiveness, ex-pressive males, embarrassed because they havenot been successfully socialized to be unex-pressive, may be especially nervous whenasked to show certain emotions in front of acamera. Thus, this finding again raises manyof the challenging questions concerning ex-pressiveness and socialization that haveemerged in recent years. The major questionas to whether expressiveness is related toposed emotional sending ability must for nowbe answered yes for females but apparentlynot for males. These correlations between theACT and acting scores for females are highfor this type of research: A short self-reporttest is predictive of ability to accurately poseemotion as determined by judges' assessmentsof short videotaped communications.

These data were further explored with mul-tiple regression analyses. Due to the relativelysmall number of cases (subjects), regressionswere limited to three predictor variables.Relevant equations with standardized betaweights are presented in Table 6. The results


were the same: The ACT is clearly positivelyrelated to posed emotional sending, but theeffects are small to moderate and differ be-tween the sexes.

Discussion

Expressiveness was clearly related to actingability, although the relationship was notstrong. Expressive people do seem better ableto communicate posed emotion. The fact thatthe relationship was clear only for femalesraises a number of questions for future re-search. The ACT was established as valid formales in the studies of friends' ratings, socialsuccess, and personality correlates; somethingseems special about acting. If this sex differ-ence is replicated in future research, a centralsubstantive question would seem to be whetherexpressiveness and acting naturally are corre-lated unless separated by sex role socializationpractices, or whether special aspects of theenvironment serve to produce the correlationwithin females (cf. Buck, 1977; LaFrance &Mayo, 1978, chap. 12).

The fact that a self-report paper-and-penciltest could predict judges' ratings of people'sbrief emotional communications to a camerais an element of validation for the presentapproach. However, it is also now more ap-parent that expressiveness is in no way synon-ymous with acting ability.

General Discussion

Charisma is usually denned as a specialability and desire to inspire, lead, or elicit thedevotion of others. Although there have al-ways been charismatic characters involved inselling, governing, or entertaining, the con-cept seems especially important in our age ofmass telecommunications. However, it has re-ceived little study. The research program re-ported in this article set out to explore thecommunication of emotions from the perspec-tive of individual differences in nonverbal ex-pressiveness. It can be concluded that muchof what is meant by charisma can be under-stood in terms of expressiveness. The sourceof charisma, such as that of a charismaticcult leader, is often claimed to be the person-ality and needs of the followers or the socialstructure of the leader-follower relationship.The present conception shifts attention to thenonverbal communication of the leader.

By way of the validation studies, the focusprovided by the ACT has led to a refinedunderstanding of the concept of expressive-ness. That is, simultaneous attention to thesocial, personality, and nonverbal skill corre-lates of expressiveness has produced a bal-anced picture of the construct. For example,the relationship of the ACT to theatrical ex-perience, social influence, lecturing, politicalcharisma, and so on, points to the importanceof emotional communication in such matters

Table 6Three Predictor Variable Multiple Regressions: The Affective Communication Test (A CT) onPosed Emotions

Item RAdjusted"

R*

Allowing "neutral" as a predictorSentences: ACT = .24 Neutral + .19 Surprise + .16 Sad .35 .08Alphabet: ACT = .32 Disgust + .14 Surprise + .13 Neutral .37 .09

Not allowing "neutral" as a predictorSentences: ACT = .19 Sad + .23 Surprise - .10 Disgust .27 .03Alphabet: ACT = .32 Disgust + .15 Surprise - .08 Anger .36 .08

Sentences separately by sex (not allowing "neutral")Males ACT = - .40 Disgust + ,22 Anger + .14 Sad .32 .00Females ACT = .58 Surprise + .33 Sadness - .13 Anger .60 .30

a Adjusted R* is a more conservative estimate of the percentage of variance explained; it takes account ofthe number of predictors and the number of cases.


but also raises the possibility that expressive-ness is sociability, has a manipulative ele-ment, and/or is a function of acting ability.However, the personality and videotape mea-sures indicate that expressiveness cannot beequated with manipulative ability, anxietyand emotionality, or pure acting ability. Andit is not mere sociability. Rather, expressive-ness is more closely related to a healthy dra-matic flair, a desire to excite or captivateothers. Furthermore, the fact that expressive-ness seems related to but by no means identi-cal with ability to pose emotions suggests thatincreased care must be taken when the termsending ability is used in nonverbal communi-cation research.

Indeed, one of the most important concep-tual clarifications that has emerged from thepresent research concerns the meaning of theterm sending ability. At times, sending abilityhas been seen as social skill, controlled byconscious intent, involving the putting on ordisguising of one's feelings to manipulateothers. At other times, sending ability hasbeen viewed as some sort of natural windowthrough which one accurately reveals one'sfeelings. The present studies clarify one im-portant sense of sending ability. Expressive-ness is closely related to Murray's (1938)concept of exhibition. It is in part a need tomake an impression, a desire to be seen andheard. Yet, it is more than a need; it is alsothe ability to succeed in this ambition throughcommunication. Expressiveness is more closelyrelated to exciting others than to manipulat-ing others. Although it does involve the trans-mission of emotions, there is also a strongelement of interpersonal success involved.Thus, this refined conception sheds light onboth older, vague notions like charisma (withwhich expressiveness seems closely related)and newer precise concepts like self-monitor-ing (with which expressiveness is not closelyrelated).

Implications

A number of promising applications mayresult from a focus on the construct of ex-pressiveness, especially in terms of individualdifferences.

First of all, nonverbal expressiveness seems

to have implications for the self-attribution ofemotion (Schachter, 19S9; Schachter &Singer, 1962). In times of anxious uncer-tainty, people may look to others for labels fortheir internal arousal. Which others do theylook to and which people have the greatestinfluence as standards for social comparison?The notion of individual differences in ex-pressiveness encourages research into suchmatters.

A second and related implication emergedfrom some of our laboratory sessions. In thisand related research, we often ask groups ofjudges to view and rate various videotapes.In some of these sessions, the judges areserious and dedicated, whereas in others afeeling of boredom sometimes develops, de-spite efforts to control such error variance. Inconducting these sessions, we generally givethe ACT to all the judges. We have noticedthrough informal observation that the tone ofthe judging session seems to be heavily in-fluenced by the feelings (positive or negative)of the high ACT person in the group. Thisinformal observation suggests that expressive-ness may also be important to the spread ofemotion through a group. Collective behaviorssuch as panic (Smelser, 1962) depend onsocial comparison and emotional communica-tion and may be encouraged or discouragedby the presence of expressive people at keypositions in the group.

The construct of expressiveness also hasvarious implications for the study of thedynamics of individual differences. There isincreasing evidence that emotional expressive-ness is systematically related to various di-mensions of personality including exhibitionand extraversion and is itself an importantaspect of personality. Although such notionshave a long history in personality psychology,they take on a new vitality with the modernfocus on nonverbal emotional communicationrather than on needs or traits. This new con-ception also helps blur the distinction be-tween personality and social psychology asattention is directed to the effects of differ-ences in expressiveness on interactions withothers.

A good example concerns the effect of oneperson's expectations on the other person'sbehavior, a major topic of research in psy-


chology and education. The provocative re-search of Rosenthal (1976; Rosen thai &Jacobson, 1968) has shown that experimentalsubjects may act to fulfill their experimenters'expectations, and students may sometimesprogress according to their teachers' expecta-tions. Although the expectancy effect hasbeen replicated many times, it has also oftenfailed to replicate (Rosenthal, 1976; Rosen-thai & Rubin, 1979). Because of the impor-tant implications of this effect for educationand scientific inquiry, it is desirable that theprecise mechanism(s) underlying the expec-tancy effect be identified so that its occurrencecan be predicted and controlled. At present, apromising explanation seems to involve subtletransmission of expectancies through non-verbal communication (e.g., Zuckerman, De-Frank, Hall, & Rosenthal, 1978). Thus, wemight predict that experimenters or teacherswho are nonverbally expressive should be bet-ter able to communicate their approval or dis-approval to their subjects or students. It hasbeen almost impossible to test this explanationsystematically without a convenient measureof expressiveness. With such a measure, in-vestigators of expectancy can routinely testfor a strengthening of the effect among ex-pressives, that is, use the ACT as a blockingvariable.

In the clinical literature, an importantfactor influencing the success of treatment isthe therapist's empathy (e.g., Truax & Cark-huff, 1967). Empathy is denned in differentways by different investigators, but one com-mon element seems to be the clinician's abilityto express nonverbally his or her feelings andunderstanding to the client (Smith-Hanen,1977). Although definitions of empathy in-volving one's ability to take the role of an-other may be theoretically important, a gooddeal more research is needed on the actualcommunication processes in an empathic re-lationship. Expressiveness, with its focus onemotional communication, may help providethis emphasis.

Finally, the construct of expressiveness andthe ACT may be of use in enhancing person-ality research on nonverbal communicationskills. With the recent proliferation of studiesof individual differences in nonverbal commu-

nication (e.g., Knapp, 1978, chap. 12), it isbecoming possible to achieve some precision inboth constructs and measures. There is a needfor research that employs various measuresand studies several aspects of nonverbal abili-ties. The ACT, which is easy to administer,promises to be of value in refining our under-standing of such matters.

It is important to remember that expres-siveness is part of a general communicationprocess, much of which is verbal. Returningto Darwin's notion that expressive cues aidthe force of language, it is apparent that non-verbal cues should not be considered a lan-guage in themselves. Although an expressivecharlatan may relegate words to double-talk,such situations are not the mode. Nonverbalcues may modify and interact with verbalcues (Friedman, 1979) but cannot carry com-plex information by themselves. As expressive-ness becomes better understood, it will becomeincreasingly necessary to examine the wordsthat accompany the nonverbal cues.

The success of the ACT in predicting awide range of social and psychological attri-butes suggests that we have begun to tap apowerful variable. With more reliable mea-surements, more complex experimental de-signs, and conceptual refinements based onthe current results, it seems likely that theconstruct of expressiveness will have a greatdeal of explanatory power.

Reference Notes

1. Hall, J. A. Gender, gender roles, and nonverbalcommunication skills. Paper presented at the meet-ing of the American Psychological Association,Toronto, Canada, August-September 1978.

2. Rosenthal, R. (Chair). Symposium on personalcorrelates of skill in nonverbal communication.Symposium presented at the meeting of the Ameri-can Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada,August-September 1978.

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